


Mosquito Smile

by JanitorBot



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2020-10-24 20:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20711912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanitorBot/pseuds/JanitorBot
Summary: He hates her. Hates how she’s steadily gaining more presence with every encounter. Hates how she’s constantly lurking at the edges with that serrated grin as if she can’t wait to latch onto him and never let go, like an annoying parasite.But most of all, Viles hates how she looks at him like he’s prey.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Robotic_meido](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robotic_meido/gifts).

> For Robotic-Meido, who heard that I had a broken computer and can’t write at home anymore, and so she literally gave me the means to literally write fics again. You’re the absolute best, here’s a multichapter fic of RepliVile, which surprisingly had an intriguing relationship dynamic.

Calling Replichi damaged is an understatement. 

Conrad grunts to the other Lifesavers that he’s got this, he knew Replichi from before so chances are she'll calm down if she sees that he's the one conducting the operations.

Ten minutes into the whole mess and he's having second thoughts.

What he said before wasn't well thought out, literally pure slag speaking as he's struggling to keep Replichi stay the fritz still onto the medical slab. Yes he knew Replichi, but he doesn’t know _ this _Replichi: this fanged, wild red reploid who at first glance seemed okay if not falling apart a bit until you take a closer look and see she's covered in scrapes and tears from head-to-toe. She's been constantly shrieking and fighting against all forms of restraint for her own good.

Conrad asked for what happened except no one knows yet. Yesterday everyone believed that the Shored Ouran mission was a spectacular failure with no survivors. Frigate Foxbat slaughtered the entire unit and declared a fugitive until there's a confirmation that he's as dead as the rest of them.

Then here's Replichi, who's a data collection reploid, not even a combatant for that matter, stumbling upon the Maverick Hunters’ Headquarters front steps a month later with a vocal unit that sounds like it went through a waste shredder.

No one knows what to believe in anymore.

Conrad shouts, more out of surprise than pain, when Replichi slips under another restraint attempt and swipes across his face. He reflexively pulls away, gingerly placing a hand over his cheek to assess the damage. Torn faux-skin, thin scratch against the metal skull. He grimaces. Replichi’s strength limiting algorithms must be corrupted or she got an upgrade before the mission Conrad didn’t hear about because she rips out of the grade C bonds (which should be more than enough for her, she’s supposed to be a scrapping data-comber!) and clambers out of the medical room.

“Repli - !” Conrad calls out, interrupted by the disturbing sensation of his face partially falling apart. “Replichi, get back here! If we don’t scan you, we won’t know what’s wrong with you!”

_ Not like anyone needs a scan to know that honestly, _he thinks, frustrated. 

Conrad follows Replichi out to the hallway and sees that the black haired reploid is already a good couple paces away until she reaches the corner and promptly slams into another body, falling backward for her trouble. Conrad breathes a sigh of relief that her escape attempt has failed.

Then he sees that the bot Replichi bumped into is purple, fully helmeted, and is the center of ghastly rumors and gossip at Base and Conrad’s anxiety spikes up.

Why couldn't she have bumped into anyone else but _Vile?_

He rushes to them. “I’m so sorry, sir. She’s back from a mission and she’s not well,” explains Conrad hurriedly.

And, because the cosmos chooses today to be horrible, Replichi surges back up like a vicious animal and throws a rusting punch at the most volatile A-Rank Hunter in the entire fragging building.

Vile catches Replichi’s wrist before it makes contact and snaps it backward, nonchalantly breaking it.

Conrad freezes in place over the sounds of wrenching metal and snapping cables, watching Replichi screaming in pain. His directives are momentarily conflicting between yelling at Vile and self-preservation. A flash of deranged red eyes later, Replichi bows her head and sinks her teeth into Vile’s forearm, impressively deep enough that not only it has gone through the thick layer of warbot armor for Vile to jolt, but also a minor spurt of hydraulic fluids and reploid fuel lines to peek out. It's nothing serious for a combatdroid like Vile whose self-repair nanites can take care of the damage, but the fact that Replichi managed to draw fluid at all is an amazing feat by itself.

“Glitching beta!’ Vile snarls before swinging at Replichi’s face so hard that she flies off. Her cheek is caved in from the force and Conrad can see the outline of the dented metal underneath the thin layer of gasping shock absorbers over it.

The sight has Conrad shouting,” She’s a patient and I’m trying to fix her so can you please not damage her further?!”

Vile clicks his tongue. “If my cannon wasn't disengaged, I would have blasted her head off and there’d be nothing that can fix that. Chain down your crazies, idiot.”

"Yes sir, I'm sorry, sir," Conrad mutters. 

Vile stalks off and Conrad deflates, groaning. On top of the pile of the necessary repairs that he’s guessing Replichi is going to need, now he needs to fix her wrist and remold her face again (that is unless Replichi is so far gone that she fails the drive performance test, but she somehow came back from the dead so that has to be working, right? Right?).

Conrad gently pushes Replichi's back so she's sitting up from the tiled floor. “Now will you please come back to the lab and stay still this time?” Conrad begs exasperatedly, a hand on her shoulder to coaxing the other robot to come with him.

She’s quiet. Subdued. Most likely because she just got her right wrist obliterated and fear for one's functioning has a tendency to free up the RAM.

Then Conrad fully takes her in and feels his wires crossing in the back of his neck. 

Replichi is staring down the hallway at Vile’s back with an intimidating intensity. She has Vile’s robot blood on her lips and her tongue licks over it, a seemingly mindless gesture except her eyes light up, fluttering and glowing.

Conrad isn’t sure what he’s seeing and isn’t sure what it means either. Some parts of Replichi looks the same but it’s clear she’s internally changed so much that he isn’t sure how much he can restore.

Now there’s a change in the air around Replichi and Conrad is one hundred percent confident to say that he doesn’t like it.


	2. Chapter 2

Vile doesn’t care to remember anyone who’s not at least A-Rank and anyone who’s not a Hunter is an extra. Most bots are obstacles at worst, convenient body shields at best. So far there has been only one undeserving robot whose name Vile bothers to remember and it’s X because that sack of slag rubs acid on him way too much to be ignored.

Yet here he is, his fingers twitching like subroutine by his side at the sight of that smelting reploid back in Medbay. The malfunctioning, walking oil spill who dared to bite him. She and the couple other betas assigned to the same raid are already waiting at the loading dock when Vile walks out of the elevator.

“Hello Vile, I’m Replichi and I’m sorry for what happened last time we met,” she says, all shallow professionalism. Her voice is set in an irritatingly cheerful pitch that makes Vile want to crush her vocal box in. “I’ll be your data comber for this mission. Let’s do our best!”

“Weren’t you supposed to be rendered for parts?” Vile drawls out contemptuously.

“Nope! That’s Frigate, sir. I’m repaired and ready to go,” Replichi smiles, eyes glittering. Her recently acquired, folded wings twitch behind her as if they’re giggling.

The mention of Frigate Foxbat’s name gives the warbot pause, but it lasts a second. Grunting dismissively, Vile stalks pass her to get on the prepared Hunter transport.

Intel states that there’s an old motel at Swarf Square acting as a cover for an illegal custom parts ring. Not all reploids have the fortune to be designed in high quality materials like Vile is, and there’s high demand to swap limbs for better ones. It’s a market soaked in zenny and hydraulic fluids. Any reploid involved is automatically labelled Maverick.

All in all, it’s a minor mission. The Recon Unit added a note that the smugglers may have connections to the White Sarkits gang. Therefore, the mission is to detain as many as possible into the Hunters’ custody for further interrogation.

But Vile can care less than two bytes what he’s “recommended” to do; as soon as the Hunter transport comes close to the location, he marches to the front of the motel. Only Replichi - who’s likely still broken and has a scrapped social assessment node - follows suit. The rest of the pathetic, lower-ranked Hunters are staying back, flooding his comm channel with angry and confused protests - _“Vile, Gradient said to be stealthy!”_

”Stay outside,” Vile snaps back. “If you let anyone escape, I’ll blast you with the Mavericks.”

_“Bolts, we’re not supposed to blast anyone!”_ someone bemoans.

“Who’s the A-Rank here? If you’re not going to hunt then get lost!”

“Sir, I can still collect information after they’re terminated as long as you don’t shoot their processors out! Feel free to let loose, just target below the neck please,” Replichi adds.

Vile wants to tell her to shut up for giving him instructions, but it’s more satisfying to put down the other whiny Hunters,” See? She can still collect the data and that’s the point. Shut up.”

When Vile stomps through the door, the reploid at the front desk is basically crawling backwards up the wall against his back, openly panicking.

“You – “

The purple warbot cocks his cannon right at the idiot’s face. “If you’re clean, then you have nothing to worry about. Sit tight or else I might accidentally let loose a shot and the ceiling falls on your processor.”

Replichi skips around Vile cheerfully towards the fear-paralyzed receptionist like a dumb female released in a mall with a happy purse. “This saves time. Pardon me!”

Humming, she opens up the front desk terminal, wrangling for something specific.

“Hurry up, we don’t have all day,” Vile snaps.

“I don’t want to break anything. The computer has to stay on for me to get anything – ah, here we go!”

Replichi tears out a single wire and bites into it. Vile sneers beneath his helmet. He doesn’t remember any of the data combers he’s worked with process data like this.

“Is there a basement?” she asks casually to the receptionist reploid.

He shakes his head stiltedly and she grins, razor sharp. “Liar,” she sing-songs, looking at Vile meaningfully.

Vile perks up. He angles his cannon downwards.

The receptionist reploid shrieks but Replichi lunges at his throat swiftly, silencing him. She pulls away a minute later with a thoughtful look. “Turns out he’s doesn’t know anything. He’s a recent hire. He didn’t mean to lie.”

“Then he’s useless,” Vile grunts before shooting a minor blast at the floor some paces away from him. The hole caves in, the debris piling on the floor below into a shallow mound. Vile hears alarmed voices echoing from the darkness and smirks.

_Finally._

* * *

By the end of it, the motel’s basement has become a catacomb.

The other Hunters are yellow-taping the grim scene by the time Vile finishes. Oh yeah, so that’s why they’re really here: clean-up. Sounds about right.

Their glares bounce off of him like mosquitoes as he stalks pass, about to ring up Command Center to report a job done on the way to the van when he hears footsteps rushing towards him from behind. It’s Replichi, hands behind her back demurely except her face is practically burning with something to say.

“What do you want?” he demands. “Don’t you have data collecting you have to do? My job is done and yours isn’t.”

“‘Tell me how much Zanetti paid.’”

Vile stills.

Replichi smiles, gleefully repeating words that should have been fragged out of Vile’s past, speaking names of dead men whose graves are nowhere near Abel City, but here they are, crawling back up like tar bubbling up from the pits.

Her posture shifts minutely. The hands behind her back is no longer meek. It’s calculating in the way humans hide knives. Her chin dips slightly downwards, eyes roaming like she’s checking the product.

“‘I’m Ricca. So how much were you, robot? He must have paid good money to get you made. I want to get something like you. Ten of you. That’d be enough for me to kill every son of a bitch in East Point.’”

Impossible. How?

It comes to Vile at the sight of Replichi’s fangs. Data reading reploid. She reads data through biting.

_This bitch._

There’s a sound of something breaking.

It’s coming from Replichi. Because Vile is grabbing her neck and lifting her up that her legs dangle in the air. She’s choking out cries – quiet because he’s putting in a threatening amount of pressure, but they’re enough to galvanize the second-rates to scramble towards him, screaming at him to let go. There’s bodies and hands on him –

He shoves them off with his other arm without looking.

This pile of slag read his data and read into his memories. How deep did she go? Has she told anyone? It doesn’t matter, he needs to kill her because no one besides Sigma should know where Vile came from, no one should know who or what Vava is – 

“Get down!”

In a flash of electric crimson light, Vile falls to his knees with a shout. He’s more surprised than in pain – no one with him had a buster that’s capable of a charged shot. He spots blond hair in the corner of his vision.

Zero. Why is he here?

“You’ve always acted out,” says one of the B-Ranks above him. “We weren’t surprised that you would do it again so we told Gradient, but even we didn't expect you'd go this far. If this doesn’t get you declared Maverick, I don’t know what will.”

“Get off your ride armor,” Vile snarls from the ground. Low-class pieces of scrap. They’re only talking back at him because they called in another combatdroid worth of slag here. 

They cuff him. Take him away to the back of the van that Zero came in. The other A-Rank doesn’t say anything to him. Whatever. Ever since he started latching onto X, Vile lost all his respect for Zero, which wasn’t much to begin with but it’s substantially more than anyone else.

Not that Vile cares. He’s dunked acid that he didn’t kill Replichi.

There are Hunters bending on the ground with her, checking on her as she rubs her neck. But she’s not looking at them. She’s looking straight at Vile, mouthing words through red stained teeth.

‘“Break nose, break teeth, cut ears…’” Vile reads.

Vile seethes silently beneath his helmet before the van doors slide shut over him.

How fragging annoying. He can’t wait to kill her.


	3. Chapter 3

Vile is going to kill X.

Before that he'll kill Zero first. Long and drawn out in front of X because that blue bastard needs to experience utter helplessness first, needs to see for his own eyes that the one bot in this entire, noxious world who gives more than two bytes of scrap for him won't save him. Then he'll move onto the First himself; pummel the B-Rank down until he's nothing more than a wretched bruise on the floor and toss that to Sigma's feet. Show the so-called Maverick Commander what the so-called reploid evolution really looks like.

A charged shot. Vile got brought down by a slagging _charged shot._

That pure, unadulterated fury from that knowledge alone is what keeps him conscious while his internal systems shut down one by one to conserve energy. He hears Sigma intone, "Retrieve Vile" into his transmitter and nothing more, he's another chore to be carried out, before the hulking reploid stalks away, forcing Vile to raise his neck to see where the frag his former Commander is going.

It's useless, Vile is breaking down, but his hand is reaching out towards Sigma like if he truly wills it, he can grab Sigma’s shoulder and twist the older reploid around. Confront him. Make him look.

_I don’t care what happens to this world,_ Vile thinks viciously. _By defeating X, I’ve validated my own existence...and that’s all matters to me now._

Illegal reploid Vile, the fourth and the sole survivor of the VAVA line, could have beaten X. He could have beaten the First Android, the Last Legacy of Light who, for all of his infinite potential and useless ‘worrying,’ couldn’t stand against him. X is only alive because he had help, but if Zero didn't swing in to play hero? Terminated. And _Vile _did that. 

“My name...is Vile...I…” he croaks out.

_I will be the one to change this world._

He'll show them that for all of these stupid peoples' precious ideals, their boxed up cities with their dainty laws and orders, they all mean nothing. _Nothing. _Humans, reploids - what the hell is a Maverick? What the hell does reploid evolution even fucking mean? When it all doesn't _matter?_

“I....am....”

His HD has been blurring and glitching, nagging him what he already knows: he’s fragged up, his valiantly struggling systems are finally turning in one by one. His power distributors in his upper body frizzles out, his neck falling back against the cold tiled floor, raised arm following the motion of his torso. It aims for a sky that’s not there. Still, Vile’s hand stutters upwards to Sigma’s retreating back as if through sheer force of will he can grab Sigma’s shoulder and twist the older reploid around. Confront him. Warp reality to grab Sigma's neck. Sigma doesn't expire, doesn't stop walking away, and Vile steels his jaw.

Even now Vile can't reach him.

Finally, his optics give out. Visuals gone and his processor with it.

He doesn’t know how much time passes when he finally comes online again.

Chronometer’s smelted. As his essential systems reboots, his CPU clinically goes down the checklist of what’s broken, what can be ignored, and most importantly, what’s going to throw a hamper onto his combat capacity.

Then he registers movement and the sounds of rattling wheels. He’s still lying on his back, eyes at the dark ceiling, but the ceilings moving. No, more accurately, he’s the one moving.

Angling his heavy head, he looks down and sees he’s on a metal table cart, improvised to be a transport stretcher. Then he tilts his head back to see who’s moving the cart and it’s…

“You woke up!” Replichi’s face enters his view. She smiles with all serrated teeth.

Vile surges forward - or at least, he tries to. His body is in bad shape and he still can’t move worth of slag, which is rusting unfortunate because after X, this particular beta is next in his scraplist.

“What are you doing here?” he growls. Good, at least his vocal unit is working fine.

“The Commander said to retrieve you. I’ve retrieved you and now I’m bringing you to the hangar where we’ll wait for pick-up,” Replichi chirps in that obnoxious, sing-song voice like she can break out into a song anytime.

Rust, this is the absolute worst. He’s wrecked ten different ways to a junkyard and this walking oil spill of a bot who knows way too much, who keeps eyeing him like he’s the one E-Tank in the entire fortress, is the one who’s in charge of him.

How fragging perfect. Sigma must have done it on purpose.

As if connecting into his thoughts, the visored reploid leans forward past the handlebar, face coming uncomfortably close to his. “Hehe, I get to have you to myself until the other Mavericks come.”

The war machine sneers inside his helmet. Gross weird thing.

“Don’t get cocky because I’m down. Do anything funny and as soon as I have one operating arm, you’ll wish Frigate Foxbat terminated you.”

“I know,” Replichi says serenely, expression twisting with such disgustingly open hunger that it makes the wires in Vile’s neck cross. “You have nine different weapons systems. You’re so much stronger than Frigate Foxbat could ever hoped to be. You’d incinerate me entirely.”

And because she’s a total creep, Replichi doesn’t stop there. With every word she says, her face inches closer and closer, her vivid crimson eyes gleaming and Vile can't back away.

“You’re so strong. So dangerous. You fought X, didn’t you? You were so close. If only he wasn’t with Zero, you could have terminated the First. You’re amazing,” she enthuses disturbingly.

A foreign feeling bubbles up inside Vile. Something that's not like spite, but just as intense. It comes out as a wary and uncharacteristic, “How in the bolts do you know that?” 

“Commander Sigma wanted to know if you knew anything, but you were down for the count at the time. So at his order, I read your data.” She licks her lips as if she’s savoring the memory, bolts, what a crazy bitch. “I only stay connected long enough to read your battle patterns and see any changes in them. The changes in your patterns allows me to figure out what moves X and Zero did and how you reacted to them. The Commander wanted to know how much X grew.”

X, X, X - how is it after Vile beat that antique into scrap, Sigma is_ still _obsessed with him? Bolts, if it weren’t for the fact that he hates X more, he’d wish for X to obliterate Sigma. Actually, the best case scenario would be that those two malfunctions off each other.

“I wish I was there.”

Replichi’s voice starts off quiet, barely above a whisper. It’s so unlike her that Vile’s attention would have undeservingly shift back to her for that alone without her suddenly stopping the cart.

“I want to experience you beating him. I want to see you pummeling X. It must have been delicious,” she goes on in the same quiet tone like a newly-activated fresh out off the belt. ”Seeing the person you despise the most reduced into nothing like that. What you must have felt, how all the codes in your emotional node warps with it. I want it.”

Vile is doing absolutely nothing, he’s literally just lying there while Replichi shivers all by herself. Creep. He senses before he feels a claw gently sliding down a neck cable. He suppresses a shudder he wouldn’t be able to bodily do.

“Hey Vile, can you let me have a bite?” Replichi starts, hushed in reverence. “I want to enjoy what you saw. Don’t you want to share your victory? I’ll celebrate with you. Just one bite. It won’t last more than a minute.”

He twitches because it’s all he can do otherwise he’d blow her stupid head off her shoulders. The sheer burst of loathing and reluctant intrigue shoots through his chassis like someone shot him (which prompts the memory of X’s charged shot, ugh, what he’d give right now to set _everything on fire)._

Vile isn’t weak.

“Please, Vile? There’s no one like you. You’re special. No, you’re unique. There’s never going to be anyone like you. I want a piece of that. I’m asking really nicely right now.”

He’s not weak so why…

“Vile, I know you’re still online. I know you can hear me. I don’t want to fight against your firewalls so please say yes? I’ll be careful, I promise. I know you’re the last of the VAVA numbers, I wouldn’t accidentally break someone who’s the last of his line. Please?”

Why is this inferior bot staring him down like he’s _prey?_

“Please please please please pleaasssseeee?”

“Hurry up,” Vile snaps, throwing a bone at the one reploid who he somehow both fucking hate and not at all. Because if there's one redeeming quality Replichi has, it's that she knows her place: below Vile, like everyone else.

At least while she’s biting him, that’ll give her mouth something to do besides yapping into his aural cone like a mosquito all day. 

Replichi’s grin somehow grows wider. An obscenely large thing, her mouth slicing her face in half.

“You’re the best, Vile,” she whispers worshipfully.

Her jaws unhinge.


End file.
